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UNBIASED Politics
UNBIASED Politics (7/7/25): What's in the Big Beautiful Bill? Answering All of Your Questions! PLUS Alligator Alcatraz, Musk's New Political Party, the New Epstein Report and More.
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Did you know that cooler temperatures facilitate the body's natural drop in core temperature at night, which then promotes the release of melatonin and leads to faster sleep onset as well as improved sleep quality. How cool. So I love that about the temperature regulating sheets I love Upgrade your summer go to cozyearth.com and use code UNBIASED for 40% off. Best selling temperature regulating sheets, apparel and more. That's 40% off by going to cozyearth.com and using code Unbiased at checkout. Trust me, you'll feel the difference the very first night. Sleep Cooler lounge lighter. Stay cozy. Welcome back to Unbiased, your favorite source of unbiased news and legal analysis. Welcome back to Unbiased Politics. Today is Monday, July 7th. Let's talk about some news. Just as a heads up, most of this episode will be about the big beautiful Bill. We'll touch on a few other stories, but for the most part, it'll pretty much be a big, beautiful Bill Q A. And because there is so much to talk about in regard to the new law, I don't really want to, you know, rush through it. So what I'm going to do is I'm going to break it up between two episodes. So. So in today's episode, I'll focus on answering the questions that you all submitted related to Medicare, Medicaid and student loans. And then on Thursday, I'll finish the rest of the questions, which deal with topics like taxes, the debt ceiling increase, and then a few miscellaneous things. For now, let's get into today's episode, starting with the devastating news out of Texas. As of today, the death toll from the Texas flooding has reached 90 and and officials are still searching for some of the girls missing from Camp mystic. More than 850 people have been rescued since that flooding began. So what happened here was a massive and incredibly destructive flash flood. Flash floods happen when a ton of rain pours down in a very short amount of time and it happens so quickly that the ground does not have the time to absorb it. Central Texas is actually called Flash Flood Alley because it is so susceptible to flooding. But this flood was like nothing the area has ever seen. Basically, weather forecasters knew rain was coming. They knew flooding was possible, but they just really underestimated the amount of rain that would inevitably fall. So on July 2, the Texas Division of Emergency Management TDEM issued state emergency response resources and reported increased threats of flooding in parts of west and Central Texas. As a result of this emergency response activation, water rescue teams and equipment were moved to areas in the region where high levels of rainfall were predicted. At 4:41pm on the second, an exposed by the National Weather Service in Austin San Antonio said scattered moderate to heavy showers were continuing to develop and were expanding in the morning. On July 3, the National Weather Service in Austin, San Antonio conducted a forecast briefing for emergency management flagging flash flood risks. Afterwards, the National Weather Service issued a moderate flood watch and the Texas Division of Emergency Management posted to x at about 10am that morning in both English and Spanish, instructions for residents on, you know, how they could stay safe in the event of a flood. The Post advised residents in west and Central Texas to remain weather aware heading into the holiday weekend. According to Lt. Governor Dan Patrick, the Texas Division of Emergency Management personally contacted mayors in the area and notified all of them of potential flooding. However, at that point it was not clear which areas the storm would hit. So later Patrick added that in a He said in a press conference that on that day on July 3rd, that message was sent to county mayors, but that it was up to them. Under the law, it was up to them to evacuate their citizens if they felt the need to. On the morning of July 4th, really in the middle of the night is when the heavy rainfall started. So at 12:42am the the National Weather Service updated the flood watch to a warning which essentially guaranteed that flooding was either imminent or it was already occurring at 1:27 in the morning. Less than an hour later, the National Weather Service Prediction center announced that flash flooding was likely to happen overnight and significant impacts were possible. The National Weather Service updated its earlier flood warning post at 2:14 in the morning to to expand the areas of impact. The National Weather Service Posted X at 4:00am that quote, a very dangerous flash flooding event is ongoing. And at 5:15am it announced a flash flooding emergency. Now, those flash flooding emergencies it says are exceedingly rare. Those alerts are only issued under severe threats to human life and catastrophic damage. At 6:16am the Kerrville Police Department posted on Facebook that the river flooding was a life threatening event and that anyone near the Guadalupe river needs to move to higher ground now. And around that time is really when the majority of the damage was done. In fact, between the hours of 2am and 7am The Guadalupe river is said to have risen about 36ft by Friday late morning, there were search and rescue teams on the ground and in the air. There were about a thousand local, state and federal officials helping with the search and rescue operation. And, and that operation is still ongoing. Now I'm sure at this point all of you have heard about Camp mystic, but Camp mystic is a Christian girls camp along the Guadalupe river in Hunt, Texas. There were about 750 girls on site when the floods hit. And according to a counselor, the cabins were completely flooded with water in the night. Campers were then put onto military trucks and evacuated. However, 27 campers and counselors, mostly campers, were very tragically swept away when that flood hit. As of today, about 10 campers and one counselor were still missing. According to local media reports, the camp director, Dick Eastland, he also died while trying to save the girls in the camp. We have since learned from the mud lines along the cabins at the camp that the water rose at least six feet from the floor. And keep in mind, I mean, these, these campers were sleeping in their bunks right when, when this happened. So that is just a terrible, terrible situation. Now, I want to quickly talk about the response because a lot of you had asked whether the federal hiring freezes or funding cuts affected the response to the floods or at least the preparedness of the floods. So first I'll briefly talk about the response and then we'll talk about any possible effects of both of those things. On Sunday, President Trump signed a major disaster declaration which will help to ensure that the first responders have the resources that they need. Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem was on the ground yesterday with Texas, or sorry, not yesterday, over the weekend with Texas Governor Greg Abbott. FEMA was activated following Trump's disaster declaration. And then according to the dhs, there are US Coast Guard helicopters, you know, helping search and rescue efforts by air. So States like Florida have also pledged their own state resources to help Texas. So there are a lot of boots on the ground as far as funding cuts and hiring freezes affecting the preparedness. That we don't know. Some critics have said that Trump's actions to cut federal workers and leave the role of responding to natural disasters largely to the states, may have led to a failure in preventative steps here. But there's no way to know that for sure at this point, and National Weather Service representatives have disputed that assertion. We know that the Trump administration did cut about 600 employees from the National Weather Service, which of course is the agency responsible for, in cases like this, predicting the severity of floods and issuing preventative warnings to residents who might be impacted. We also know that the national oceanic and Atmospheric Administration received cuts and is currently understaffed in many of its weather related departments. However, former NOA Director Rick Spenard said he could not say for certain whether federal cuts would have impacted the lack of warning, you know, given to Texas residents prior to the floods. And then there are other there are multiple meteorologists that have come out and said there, there actually wasn't a lack of warning, which we'll get into in a minute. The former NOA director said that the cuts inevitably could degrade the agency's ability to deliver information. But, but in this case he did not tie one to the other. A National Weather Service representative told CNN that while the Austin San Antonio office is missing, a warning coordination coordination specialist who serves as a link between forecasters and emergency managers and also said that a local National Weather Service office in Texas is operating with seven open rolls. There were adequate staffing resources in the forecast offices. The National Weather Service said it even brought on extra staff ahead of the storm in anticipation of a dangerous night. We've also heard, as I said from some meteorologists around the country, Alan Gerard, the former director of the Analysis and Understanding Branch at the National Severe Storms Laboratory of the noaa, wrote in a substack post, quote, what I have been able to see about this event shows me that the National Weather Service did a solid job. Similarly, there is little evidence that any of the recent cuts to NOAA and the National Weather Service negatively impacted services for this event, regardless of what may be being said on social media, end quote. A Houston based meteorologist, Matt Lanza, similarly wrote in a substack post, quote, in this particular case, we have seen absolutely nothing to suggest that current staffing or budget issues within the NO double A and the National Weather Service played any role at all. In this event. Anyone using this event to claim that is being dishonest. And there are many places you can go with expressing thoughts on the current and proposed cuts. We've been very vocal about them here. But this is not the right event for those takes, end quote. John Morales, a Florida based meteorologist, he wrote on X that the cuts, quote, did not impact the warning process, but may have impacted coordination. And Avery Tomaszco, a meteorologist at CBS Houston, said, quote, all I'll say is this. The National Weather Service issued a flood watch for Kerr county more than 12 hours ahead of the catastrophic flood. A flash flood warning was issued for Hunt and Ingram three hours before the Guadalupe started to climb. They did their job and they did it well, end quote. Okay, so there's no real easy way to move on from that story. So we're just going to switch gears a bit and talk about Alligator Alcatraz, another subject matter that you all really wanted me to talk about. This is the new detention center for undocumented migrants in the Florida Everglades. This facility was authorized by an emergency order that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis issued in June. Per that order, construction was to be completed in just eight days. And it did officially just open on July 1, with the first detainees arriving on July 2. A little bit about the facility. It's located on a three square mile property at a small former training airport and it includes 10 structures to eventually detain up to 5,000 undocumented immigrants. Currently, as we'll talk about, there's about 3,000 beds, but they do plan to increase that. There are more than 200 security cameras on site, more than 28,000ft of barbed wire, and 400 security personnel. As of now, the facility is holding about 3,000 beds, but it is expected to expand in increments of 500 until it reaches its full capacity of 5,000 in the next couple of weeks. The name of the facility, of course, comes from the fact that the Everglades, where the facility is, is full of alligators. If you've ever traveled across South Florida, you know that that area of the state is called Alligator Alley. It's called that for a reason. So as I said, the first detainees arrived at the facility on the second. The process of sending immigrants to this center works in tandem with Florida law enforcement officers who partner with ICE to arrest and detain undocumented migrants under ICE. ICE's 287G program, which we've talked about, it basically gives state and local law enforcement the ability to work with ICE in detaining these individuals. The individuals are then taken to Alligator Alcatraz where ICE and police officers are allowed to interrogate them while they're in custody and detain them for deportation. As far as cost goes, the facility is expected to cost $450 million and and it will be funded through state and federal funds. Now, the information we've received thus far is a bit confusing. I'll tell you what we know. What it seems like is that the state is funding the operations at the facility, but federal funds will be used for the construction of the facility. So the DHS said in part. Quote, DHS has not implemented, authorized, directed or funded Florida's temporary detention center. Florida is constructing and operating the facility and using state funds on state lands under state emergency authority and a pre existing general delegation of federal authority to implement immigration functions. Florida has received no federal funds, nor has it applied for federal funds related to the temporary detention center, end quote. With that said, though, during President Trump's visit to the site last week, he said the federal government was going to help reimburse Florida for certain costs and help with construction through the FEMA Shelter and Services program. That FEMA shelter and Services program has it was created under the Biden administration. It's been used in the past to fund operations for detaining and housing undocumented immigrants. DeSantis told reporters that the site will be funded largely by the FEMA program, saying to reporters, quote, alligator Alcatraz will be funded largely by FEMA's Shelter and Services program, which the Biden administration used as a piggy bank to spend hundreds of millions of American taxpayer dollars to to house illegal aliens. Now it's being used to detain criminal aliens while they await deportation, end quote. DHS spokesperson Trisha McLaughlin also confirmed in a statement that FEMA funding would help pay for the facility. Now, the shelter and services program is reimbursement based, so states first spend their own funds and then they apply for reimbursement. So far, there has not been any clarification as to whether Florida has already issued a request for reimbursement, though quotes from DeSantis do indicate that this will likely happen in the future, if it hasn't happened already on Thursday. This is just a parallel storyline. 5 Florida Democratic Senator or Senate, not Senators, state lawmakers showed up at the facility for an official legislative site visit, but they were denied entry. In a joint statement before their visit, the lawmaker said, quote, as lawmakers, we have both the legal right and moral responsibility to inspect this site, demand answers and and expose the abuse before it becomes the national blueprint, end quote. However, as I said, the lawmakers were ultimately denied entry by law enforcement and they subsequently responded to that denial in another joint statement saying, quote, this is a blatant abuse of power and an attempt to conceal human rights violations from the public eye, end quote. A lot of you asked me to cover the arguments for and against the construction of a facility like this. So primarily opponents are concerned that the site could become permanent, right? They're saying it's temporary right now. Some are concerned it could become permanent and also present long term political and environmental damage. In fact, some environmental groups like Friends of the Everglades have already filed a lawsuit. They are attempting to stop operations and construction. They argue that the site harms the ecosystem of the Everglades, which is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, because of its biodiversity. DeSantis responded to those environmental claims, saying the site does not include any plans for sewers that could potentially be harmful to the land. And he said there will be, quote, unquote, zero impact on the Everglades. DeSantis has also said the site is temporary, though, like I said, critics are worried it will continue to run for months or years during the Trump presidency. Others are concerned about conditions at the facility between the heat, mosquitoes, frequent rainfall. In fact, there was some flooding just last week after a period of heavy rain. Florida's like that. Florida gets some crazy storms sometimes. State officials, though, they sent contractors in to manage the flood, the flooding overnight. And they, they said the facility can withstand a Category 2 hurricane and that these little bouts of rain aren't a big deal. Supporters of the site argue that it's legal and necessary to carry out deportation efforts and to encourage those in the country unlawfully to to self deport rather than being sent to a facility like this one. So that's just kind of a brief overview of the arguments on both sides. I know you had asked about that. So that's what you need to know. Let's take our first break here. When we come back, we'll quickly talk about Elon Musk's new political party and then we'll dive into the big beautiful. Bill. Summer is here and we are all chasing something. Let's be real, whether it's a break, a goal, a vibe, but we can't let bad socks and blisters ruin it. But Bombas makes socks and now slides and seamless essentials that keep up with whatever your summer looks like, whether you're running a marathon or you're just running a few errands like myself. So let me tell you about some of my favorite Bombas products. If you're looking for an everyday sock, I love the cushioned no show socks. They're called cushioned for a reason. They're super comfortable. You also can't go wrong with the ankle socks, but that's more of a personal preference. My husband loves the men's ankle socks for for women, I highly recommend checking out their summer shop. They have so many cute sock designs and their new slides are a game changer for the summer. 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Go to shipstation.com and use code Unbiased to sign up for your free trial. No credit card or contract required and you can cancel anytime. That's shipstation.com code unbiased. Welcome back. Over the weekend, Elon Musk announced a new political party and a post on X. He wrote, quote, by a factor of two to one, you want a new political party and you shall have it. When it comes to bankrupting our country with waste and graft, we live in a one party system, not a democracy. Today the America Party is formed to give you back your freedom. So that factor of two to one that he's referencing is is the result of a poll that he conducted on July 4th on X. And that poll said, quote, independence Day is the perfect time to ask if you want independence from the two party, some would say uniparty system. Should we create The America Party? 1.2 million x users responded to that poll. 65.4 of them answered yes. Notably, Musk's announcement of the America Party comes after the passage of the Big Beautiful bill, right? And Musk has very publicly criticized the bill and the administration for increasing government spending. Now, the extent to which Musk has actually formed a party or is planning to is is still unclear. If he were to form an official political party, he would have to legally file with the Federal Election Commission, and according to recent FEC filings, he has not done that yet. We know that Musk's party would be fiscally conservative, aiming to spend as little federal funds as possible, would be pro gun and pro cryptocurrencies. A user on X asked Musk if the America Party platform would do the following reduce debt, modernize the military with AI and robotics, accelerate to win in AI, support less regulation across the board, but especially in energy, promote free speech and natalism, but have centrist policies everywhere else. Musk response was yeah. Throughout the weekend, Musk continued to post on X, writing at one point, quote, when and where should we hold the inaugural American Party Congress? He also reposted another ex post that said, quote, america Party could soak up a lot of the existing Dem base that feel politically homeless and hate extremism, end quote. Musk did say that his party would actively play a role in the 2026 midterm elections and focus on supporting House and Senate candidates. But like I said, there have been no FEC filings, so we'll have to see what happens there. Following Musk's announcement, Tesla stock dropped 8%, which isn't entirely surprising considering the Tesla stock was hurting when Musk dove further into politics last year and also during his recent feud with Trump over the Big Beautiful Bill. Notably, third parties here in the United States, they historically fail because of the Electoral College and the way that our elections are set up. So some conservatives are concerned that Musk's party would fail to gain enough traction to make any meaningful changes and instead just do damage to the Republican Party by taking away Republican votes. Okay, now for the discussion you've all been waiting for. The One Big Beautiful Bill act, better known as the Big Beautiful Bill Before I answer the many questions all of you have, I just want to say a few things at the outset. Number one, as I said in the beginning of this episode, today's Q and A will focus on Medicare, Medicaid, and student loans. Thursday's episode will focus on taxes, the debt ceiling increase, and a few miscellaneous topics. The second thing I want to note is that a lot of you asked me to tell you what the truth is about this bill, right? You wanted to know whether it's actually good or bad. The thing is, I can't tell you whether it's good or bad. I can tell you the truth about what the bill says, but I can't say whether something is good or bad. That's that's too subjective. You know, some think the work requirements for Medicaid and SNAP are great. Others think it's terrible. Something the increase in funding for the Defense Department is a good thing. Others think it's unnecessary. So I won't be telling you what's good and bad, but I will tell you what the bill says, and then you can decide whether you like certain things or don't. And then as a final note, you'll hear me refer to the Big Beautiful Bill, sometimes as a bill, other times as a law. And it is now a law because it has been signed by the President. But I will be using these terms interchangeably just because it's so commonly referred to as the Big Beautiful Bill, despite being a law. So I think both terms work here. Starting off, a lot of you asked me to explain the Big Beautiful Bill to you as if you were seven years old. So what I'll do is I'll explain the general concept of the bill as if you were seven. You know how when you were younger, at least when I was younger, my parents made me this big list of chores. Clean your room Take out the trash, do the dishes, etc, and then I had siblings, right? So me and my siblings would split up the chores each week. Everyone had to do their part. And I, I think I just said I had siblings. I still very much have siblings. But anyway, you get the point. We had to, we had to split up the tasks by person. Everyone had to kind of pitch in. Imagine the big beautiful bill is a big chore chart for the whole country, okay? It's a lot of different little things put together to make one big big list. How to spend money, how much to tax, how much to save, etc. In this example, Congress is like the parents. They make the chore list. And then the rest of the federal government is like the kids. They're the ones that actually do the chores. They follow the plan, they build the roads, they run the programs, et cetera. So Congress says, here's the big beautiful bill, the big list of what we want done. The rest of the government says, okay, we'll do it. Now, before we get into the questions, I want to make one thing clear that I feel like most people don't know yet. You know how we've been hearing a lot about these cuts to various programs, like $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid, 287 billion in cuts to SNAP. When we hear these numbers, what they are is they're estimates from analysts like the Congressional Budget Office, right? So. So these numbers aren't explicitly mentioned in the bill. Congress isn't saying, hey, we're mandating 287 billion in cuts for SNAP, or we're mandating 1 trillion in cuts for Medicaid. And instead these analysts are looking at how much less will be spent on these programs by the federal government due to heightened work requirements, more funding contribution from the states, less contribution from the federal government, etc. And calculating a number that they think will be the total amount cut or saved, depending on how you look at it, by the federal government. Now that's not to say these estimates aren't accurate, it's just to clarify that these numbers are not explicitly mentioned in the bill. So now let's answer some of your questions. I'll start with more general questions and then we'll work our way into the more topic specific questions. Starting with, are all bills as big as the big beautiful bill? Most bills are not, but some bills are. Okay, so the big beautiful bill is around 900 pages, most bills. And you got to think about this. There are a lot of bills that pass, right? Most bill or not even Passed, but introduced and voted on. Most bills are small and typically deal with one specific issue. But sometimes Congress combines a ton of stuff into one giant bill, like the big beautiful bill. But typically when bills deal with money or taxes, they're usually pretty big. Another example of a massive bill would be the Affordable Care act, which was passed under Obama. That was more than 2,000 pages. And then usually all of the consolidated appropriations bills are more than a thousand pages because again, those are just, those are bills that set the budget for the whole government. So usually, no, most bills are much shorter. But there are definitely bills that are very big, like this one. Next question. Are the changes in the big beautiful bill permanent? No, but let me explain this one a little bit further. So some parts of the bill say things like ice, gets X amount of money for the upcoming fiscal year, that's obviously a short term change and is therefore not permanent. Right. Then you have other parts of the bill that last until Congress changes them. So these parts of the bill are more permanent. In a sense, they're meant to be permanent, but nothing in Congress is ever truly permanent. And that's because a future Congress can always rewrite, extend, change, cancel certain parts of a bill. If, let's just say after the 2026 midterm elections, Congress switches to a Democratic majority, the Democratic Party can then try to change parts of the big beautiful bill or even repeal parts of the bill completely. They would just need to pass the new changes through both the House and the Senate and, you know, hope that the President doesn't veto it. Of course, the President could veto any new legislation that would repeal or change any parts of his bill, but Congress could then override that veto with a two thirds majority. And even if it didn't happen after these upcoming midterms, because Trump will still be in office, so hypothetically, any attempt to repeal or change wouldn't pass and would get vetoed. If at some point down the road a new Congress wants to change parts of the bill, they can certainly try to do that. As an example, that Affordable Care act that I, that I just mentioned a minute ago, that has had parts of it change and repealed over the years. So that's why I say nothing is ever permanent in Congress. It can be, but, you know, even when Congress wants something to be permanent or writes a bill as if it's permanent, a future Congress can always change it. Does the big beautiful bill take effect immediately or not until 2026? Well, some of the provisions take effect now, some take effect later this year, some take effect in 2026. Some even take effect later than that in 2029. It really just depends on the provision. As we go through the provisions, I'll try to note when they each take effect. Okay, so now let's get into the more pointed questions, starting with does the bill actually cut Medicaid and Medicare? When will people start losing benefits and who is going to lose their health care? The media is saying between 12 and 17 million people. Is that true? Okay, so first of all, when we talk about cuts to Medicaid and Medicare, we're talking about the implementation or revocation of rules that in effect cause less money to be spent on these programs. Right. For instance, there are increased work requirements for Medicaid that might disqualify millions of people. There are new cost sharing mandates that take some of the financial burden off the federal government. There are new provider payment caps. All of these things cut Medicaid spending from the federal budget. That's what we mean when we say cuts. It's not that the programs are going away completely. I just want to make that clear for anyone who might be confused. Now, quickly, before I answer this set of questions, I do want to note the difference between Medicare and Medicaid because this is important. Medicare is care mainly for people aged 65 or older, but also for some younger people with certain disabilities. It's entirely federal. It helps, you know, cover hospital care, doctor's visits, prescription drugs, and private plan options. Medicaid is aid for low income people. It's run by both the federal government and the states, but each state actually has its own rules about who's eligible, and each state has its own name. So for their Medicare program, the key difference between the two, for the most part, is that Medicaid is about income, whereas Medicare is about age. And that's why the work requirements were increased for Medicaid. But they don't exist for Medicare because those on Medicare are already past the working age or have disabilities, so they don't have to work. Those on Medicaid are on Medicaid solely because of income. They they're not limited by age or disability and therefore subject to work requirements. So with those things in mind, let's go back to the first question, which is, does the bill actually cut Medicaid and Medicare? Yes. Analysts estimate that the one big beautiful Bill act will lead to about a trillion dollars in cuts or savings, depending on how you look at it, in Medicaid spending over the next 10 years. As for Medicare, the law triggers a 4% cut to Medicare payments to providers starting in fiscal year 2026. Analysts say that will total about 500 billion over eight years. So we'll talk about the Medicaid cuts first, and then Medicare. Contributing to the estimated $1 trillion in cuts to Medicaid is the new work requirements. Right. Those work requirements take effect by December 31, 2026, but states can request a delay up until the end of 2027 once those work requirements take effect. In order to receive Medicaid benefits, individuals will have to show that they spend at least 80 hours each month working, receiving job training, attending school, or doing community service. And this applies to adults aged 19 to 64 who can work, meaning they're not disabled and they either don't have children or their children are older than 14 years old. So there's also an exemption for pregnant people. People already enrolled in Medicaid would have to prove compliance for at least one to three months. Twice a year, new Medicaid applicants would have to prove that they meet the work requirements for at least one to three months before enrolling. Under the law, states will now have to conduct eligibility checks every six months rather than every 12 months. And states also do have the option to implement more frequent eligibility checks if they wish to do so. As for the 4% cut to Medicare payments, what that means is starting in fiscal year 2026, the government will pay doctors, hospitals, and other healthcare providers 4% less for treating Medicare patients than they currently do. And the reason that this is happening is not because it's explicitly written into the big beautiful bill. It's actually because of another law called the paygo. What the pay go says is that if congress increases the deficit and doesn't pay for that increase by either cutting spending or raising taxes, then automatic cuts kick in to pay for that new debt. Now, we obviously know that this new law increased the debt ceiling by $5 trillion. It also calls for more spending, and it cut taxes. It didn't raise taxes. It cut them. So the law automatically triggered paygo because Medicare is one of the biggest pots of money the federal government spends when paygo kicks in. Part of those automatic cuts are aimed at reducing how much the government pays doctors, hospitals, and other providers for treating Medicare patients. Now, by law, the automatic cut to Medicare can't be more than 4% per year. So while the big beautiful bill doesn't explicitly say that payments to providers will be cut by 4% in fiscal year 2026, it'll happen that way because of paygo. Right. The debt needs to be paid for now. I want to be clear that the 4% payment reduction does not mean Medicare beneficiaries are losing their benefits. It means that doctors and hospitals get paid 4% less for treating Medicare patients. Now, possible effects of doctors and hospitals being paid less include doctors no longer treating Medicare patients if they think payments are too low to cover their costs. It also might be harder to find certain specialists who accept accept new Medicare patients because they know they won't be paid as much by the government to treat those patients. It could also cause hospitals and clinics that rely heavily on Medicare funding to incur financial difficulties. So while Medicare beneficiaries are still entitled to all of their benefits under this law, under the big beautiful bill, it could become harder for them to access treatment. Speaking of financial difficulties for hospitals, I want to address this claim that rural hospitals are going to close because of this bill. The reason people are saying this is because rural hospitals get a lot of their revenue from Medicaid. On average, these hospitals will lose about 21 cents for every dollar of Medicaid payments, which will total about $70 billion over the next 10 years. On top of that, rural hospitals also depend significantly on Medicare. So a 4% cut in Medicare payments reduces their revenue even further. And you also have to keep in mind that according to an American hospital association analysis, 48% of rural hospitals are already operating at a loss. So for those reasons, people have concerns that rural hospitals will be forced to close as a result of this bill. Let's take our second break here. When we come back, I'll finish the big beautiful bill Q and A and then we'll do some quick hitters and critical thinking. Now that summer is officially here and the temperatures are rising, it's really important that we have lightweight clothes, okay? But we still have to look good and that's a feat, right? You got to still be fashionable yet wearing minimal and breathable clothes at same time. But that's where Quint comes in. I love that Quint has so many lightweight and breathable options for the summer. Things like 100% European linen tops starting at $30, washable silk dresses and skirts, swimwear starting at just under $50. And then for men they have awesome linen shorts starting at $40 and really breathable cotton T shirts starting at $25. I am personally loving the 100% European linen high waisted shorts and the flow knit breeze fit and flare dress. Both are perfect for the summer. So give your summer closet an upgrade with quince. Go to quince.comunbiased for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. That's Q U I N C E.comunbiased to get free shipping and 365 day returns quince.comunbiased I'm not switching my team.
- [38:35]
Co-host
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- [39:34]
Host
Welcome back. Before we took a break, we talked about the cuts to Medicare and Medicaid. Now I want to answer the question of who who is going to lose their health care coverage. The media is saying between 12 and 17 million people. Is that true? Well, according to a preliminary estimate by the Congressional Budget Office, because of this bill, the number of uninsured people in the United States would increase by 11.8 million by 2034. So that would be, that would almost be back to the 2009 levels, which was before the Affordable Care act was signed into law. Currently, the number of uninsured is close to 27 million, according to the CDC. So, so if that estimate is correct by the Congressional Budget Office, that would mean that by 2034 there would be close to 39 million people uninsured. So let's talk about who those people are that will lose coverage under this new bill. If you are an adult and you either don't have kids or your kids are over the age of 14 and you are not either elderly, pregnant or disabled and you are not meeting that 80 hour work requirement, either work, job, training, attending school or doing community service, you will lose your Medicaid coverage. If you don't file your paperwork proving that you are meeting that work requirement, you will lose Your coverage. Now, what's interesting about Medicaid and the new work requirements is first of all, this will most certainly be challenged in the courts, and I'll tell you why. So Arkansas did something similar in 2018. It was later ended by a judge, but basically Arkansas required Medicaid beneficiaries age 30 to 49. They eventually extended it, but initially it was age 30 to 49 to either work or complete some other qualifying activity for 80 hours a month and unless otherwise exempt. Within nine months of launching the new requirements, roughly 18,000 people lost coverage, either because they didn't qualify or because they weren't aware of the new rule or because they didn't submit the proper paperwork proving that they were meeting the requirements or because they didn't know how to get verified. So to give you some context, to give you some numbers, roughly 60,000 people of those enrolled in Arkansas's Medicaid program were subject to these new work requirements. Of those 60,000, 92% or just under 56,000 people were already meeting the work requirement. So that means that roughly 4,000 were not meeting the work requirement. But as you can tell from those numbers, it wasn't just those 4,000 that lost coverage. There was an additional 14,000 people that lost coverage. And like I said, this is mostly because people were unaware of the new rule or didn't know how to submit the proper paperwork or didn't properly submit the proper paperwork. Now, ultimately, the judge in Arkansas put an end to the program because he felt that the Arkansas HHS secretary didn't properly explain why limiting Medicaid coverage would still meet Medicaid's purpose of providing care and that removing 18,000 people from coverage didn't promote Medicaid's goal. So it'll be interesting to see what happens here because I'm sure that these new work requirements that were enacted in the big beautiful bill will get challenged in a very similar way. And, and the people that challenge it will likely use that case as their precedent and it'll probably end up before the Supreme Court. But continuing on with who might lose coverage here, those on Medicaid who can't afford the new costs for coverage might also drop. And what I mean by that is the bill allows states to add new costs like CO pays for people specifically covered under Medicaid expansion. So we obviously know what Medicaid is at this point. But before 2010, Medicaid was mostly for low income kids, low income parents with kids, pregnant people, and some disabled adults and low income seniors. But in 2010. With Obama's affordable Care act, states were given the option to expand Medicaid to cover even more low income adults, even if they don't have kids or a disability. And under the Affordable Care act, states could cover all adults under the age of 65 who make up to 138% of the federal poverty level. If a state opted into this program, the government paid about 90% of the cost, the state pays the other 10. And that's currently still in effect. There are 40 states plus D.C. that have this expanded Medicaid. But now under the one big beautiful bill act, states that have expanded Medicaid have to start charging co pays of up to $35 per medical service for certain adults with incomes between 100 and 138% of the federal poverty level. That's equivalent to an annual income of between 15,000 and 21,000, roughly. However, annual co pays are also capped at 5% of a family's income per this bill. So, so annual copays can't go above that amount. But that's to say that if you are subject to these new CO pays and you don't pay them, you can also lose coverage. That change takes effect in fiscal year 2029. So these are the various ways in which people can lose effect. Uh, it's not that the bill is actively, you know, kicking off this person, this person, that person. It's that if you don't meet these requirements, if you don't pay these CO pays, if you don't do these things that are now required under law, that's when you could lose your coverage. My daughter is a type 1 diabetic. Will she lose her Medicaid? Will the cuts impact children who qualify for Medicaid with a disability waiver? Let's take this one one question at a time. If we're talking about the new Medicaid work requirement leading to a loss in coverage for children, the answer is no. The work requirement only applies to certain working age adults, not kids. Children are completely exempt. Even if their parents don't meet the work requirements, eligible children are still entitled to coverage. So your daughter who has type 1 diabetes, she should not lose her Medicaid coverage. As for the second question, will the cuts impact children who qualify for Medicaid with a disability waiver? Not directly, but potentially indirectly. And here's what I mean by that. It's possible that if a state runs out of money because they are now spending more due to these limits on federal reimbursements that are included in the bill, States can choose to freeze new waiver slots. They can choose to tighten eligibility. They can choose to reduce services within its waiver budget. So that's a possibility. However, I also want to note that states can't just kick people off without a federally approved plan amendment or a waiver change. And states would typically freeze new slots rather than terminating active waivers. So if your child has an active waiver, they're less at risk. But could the big beautiful bill cause states to indirectly limit new approvals and or reduce benefits? Possibly. Can you talk about the impact of the new SNAP work requirements and students free school lunches? Okay, so as we've talked about, the bill expands work requirements for Medicaid beneficiaries, but it also implemented those same work requirements for SNAP beneficiaries. SNAP is the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program. It's the main federal program in the United States that helps low income people buy food. If a child's family gets snap, that child is automatically eligible for free school meals at public schools that participate in the National School Lunch Program. And by the way, the way that this works is these schools use SNAP participation to automatically enroll kids in the National School Lunch Program without requiring extra paperwork. So how do the cuts and work requirements affect free school lunches? Well, for one, we don't know for sure whether school lunches will be affected, right? If they are affected, we don't know to what extent. What we do know is that certain provisions of this law could have the effect of reducing the number of families enrolled in SNAP and therefore reducing the number of children that have access to free school lunches. So one of the concerns from some parents is that the new work requirements will be too burdensome. Currently, the SNAP work requirements generally exempt families where one parent is working and one parent is a stay at home. The current rules also exempt people with dependents under the age of 18. But under the new law, both parents would have to work and report the minimum of 20 hours a week. And the work requirements would extend to those with dependents between the ages of 14 and 18. So if parents can't meet those requirements or don't properly submit their paperwork and therefore lose their SNAP benefits, that would then cause their children to lose their free lunches. The other concern for some parents is that now that states are having to pay more money out of pocket for snap, they will start to crack down on eligibility. So the new law now requires states to pay a larger share of SNAP administrative costs and in some cases, a larger share of SNAP benefit costs. These changes could cause states to tighten eligibility rules or reduce benefit amounts because they're getting less money from the government and spending more out of their own pockets. Right. And of course, if, if less people are eligible for snap, less children could be eligible for for free lunches. So that's where the concern is coming from. But let's talk about how these cost sharing changes work. Currently, states pay 0% of SNAP benefit costs. The federal government pays 100% under the new law. Starting in fiscal year 2028, so long as states stay under a 6% error rate, which is how often they pay too much or too little in SNAP benefits, their share of SNAP benefit costs will stay at 0%. The federal government will continue paying 100% of the SNAP benefit costs so long as a state's error rate is below 6%. If a state's error rate is between 6 and 8%, the state will now have to pay 5% of the benefit costs. If a state's error rate is between 8 and 10%, the state will now have to pay 10% of the benefit costs. And if a state's error rate is more than 10%, the state will now have to pay 15% of the benefit costs. And again, that's starting in fiscal year 2028. When it comes to administrative SNAP costs, starting in fiscal year 2027, states will be on the hook for 75% of SNAP administrative costs, and that is up from the current 50% that they are on the hook for now. Currently, the federal government pays 50% of SNAP administrative costs. The states pay the other 50%. But starting in fiscal year 2028, the federal government will pay 25% and the states will pay 75%. So what this means is that in the next couple of years, states could be on the hook for anywhere from 25% to 40% more in snap costs than they currently are. And those increased costs could lead, not guaranteed, could lead to more restrictions on the program to reduce the costs to the states. So that's how that works. Does the bill remove SNAP and Medicaid benefits for undocumented immigrants? Yes. The bill says that one can only be eligible for SNAP and Medicaid if they are a resident of the United States and either a citizen or national of the United States, an alien lawfully admitted for permanent residence as an immigrant, an alien who has been granted the status of Cuban and Haitian entrant, or an individual who resides in the United States in accordance with a compact of free association. Does the bill prohibit Medicaid funding for being used to from being used to pay for gender transition services for children and adults. Yes. And it also prohibits Planned Parenthood from receiving Medicaid funding. As well as Didn't Trump say while he was running that he wouldn't cut SNAP or Medicare? Snap. Not. Not so much Medicare. Yes, he did say that many times. Okay, the last few questions are about student loans. What are the actual changes to student loans, when do these take effect? And how will students be able to afford college with caps on aid? So some of the changes to student loans. For one, the bill actually expands access to Pell Grants, which is a type of federal aid for low income families. At the same time though, the bill limits how much people can now borrow from the federal government. So we'll talk about the Pell Grant expansion and then we'll talk about the caps on aid. Starting in the 2026, 2027 school year, students from low income backgrounds who would normally qualify for a federal Pell Grant can now get aid for short term workforce training. It's a new grant called a Workforce Pell Grant. It allows borrowers to spend the money on training programs that last eight to 15 weeks and and lead to some kind of credential or academic credit towards a degree or certification program. The bill also increases Pell funding for the years 2026 to 2028 by about 10 and a half billion dollars. However, the law also tightened the enrollment requirements for Pell Grants. Now students have to be enrolled at least half time or nine credits to be eligible for a Pell Grant. The current enrollment requirement is 6, so that'll go up to 9 under this new law. And as far as the caps go, unsubsidized loans will be capped at $20,500 per year and $100,000 lifetime. For professional degrees like medical school and law school, borrowers are capped at $50,000 per year and $200,000 lifetime. There is a new lifetime borrowing limit for all federal student loans of $257,500. Parent borrowing through the Parent plus loan program will now be capped at $20,000 per year per student and and $65,000 lifetime. And Grad plus loans which currently allow grad students to borrow up to their entire cost of attendance minus any federal aid will be completely eliminated. As far as loan repayment options, starting in mid-2026, there will be two repayment plan choices. That's down from the seven options borrowers currently have now. Currently there are four different income driven repayment plans and three different standard repayment plans. But after July 1, 2026. Borrowers will only be able to enroll in one type of income driven repayment plan or one type of standard repayment plan. The standard repayment plan comes with fixed payments which allows borrowers to repay their loan amount over 10 to 25 years based on their loan amount. And the income based replay repayment plan, called the repayment assistance Plan, allows borrowers to pay monthly payments between 1 and 10% of their discretionary income. Now, currently there are about 8. 8 million borrowers enrolled in Biden's Save repayment plan, which is going away. The new law requires Save borrowers to choose between a standard repayment plan and the repayment assistance plan sometime between July 2026 and July 2028. If borrowers don't enroll in a new plan by July 2, 2028, they'll be automatically enrolled in the repayment assistance plan. And same with the pay plan, that's another income driven repayment plan created by Biden. Those borrowers will be automatically enrolled in the repayment assistance plan. So to be clear, current borrowers using any income driven repayment plan will be moved to the repayment assistance plan gradually, but must switch by July 2, 2028. And new borrowers who take out loans on or after July 1, 2026 will only have these two repayment options available to them. And then finally, on the topic of loan repayment, the law eliminates the unemployment and economic deferment options for new loans starting July 1, 2026. So deferment basically allows borrowers to defer payments during times of financial hardship. Now, for these new loans, starting July 1, 2026, borrowers can still get forbearance, which is a delay period limited to nine months within any two year period and gives you that same reprieve in times of financial hardship. But new new borrowers won't be able to extend that deferment to through these other programs. And by the way, just for clarification, existing loans can still utilize economic or unemployment deferment. These new rules are just for those loans that will be issued after July 1, 2026. And then finally, to answer the last question, which was how will students be able to afford college with caps on aid? The answer is private loans. Of course they can still borrow up to the cap in federal loans, but if they need more than that, they'll have to turn to private loans through private lenders and banks. Now for some quick hitters. We're just doing a couple today, literally only two, because today's episode is so dense. If you want more quick hitters make sure you are subscribed to my newsletter that'll hit your inbox at 6am tomorrow morning. It goes out every Tuesday and Friday and it covers quick hitters in not just politics, but also business, health, international and pop culture news. The sign up link can always be found by clicking the link in the show Notes of each Episode President Trump has started sending letters to various countries setting a tariff rate on their imports. He'll be sending those letters between today and Wednesday, which is the day that those liberation tariffs are scheduled to take effect. After previously being delayed today, Trump shared copies of two letters. He's already sent one to South Korea, another to Japan, and according to those letters, both of those countries will face a 25% blanket tariff on imports starting Aug. 1. The DOJ and FBI said today that Jeffrey Epstein did in fact die by suicide and did not have a claim client list. In this new memo, the agency said they have concluded that they have no evidence that Epstein was murdered or that he blackmailed powerful figures or kept a client list. The administration released a video along with the memo, seemingly showing that no one entered the area of the prison where Epstein was being held the night he died in 2019. Interestingly, FBI Director Cash Patel and Deputy Director Dan Bongino previously said they thought Epstein was murdered, but those theories were shared by them before being appointed to their positions in the FBI. All right, now for some critical thinking for those that are new, this is a segment that I try to incorporate whenever I can. It's not meant to be too complex. It's just meant to be a challenge. For today, we're going back to the work requirements for Medicaid and snap. If you generally support these new work requirements, how do you rectify the situation where people already meeting those work requirements end up losing their coverage, either because they miss paperwork deadlines or, you know, they're not sure how to file the proper paperwork. Does the policy achieve its goal if the loss of coverage is not tied to actual work effort? And if not, how would you fix that if you were a lawmaker? Now, if you generally oppose the new work requirements, if the goal is to prevent people who can work from relying on government help when they don't need it? Is there a fair way to enforce that without accidentally hurting people who are working but having a hard time navigating the reporting rules, how would you accomplish that? And then, regardless of what side you're on, think about what trade offs states might have to make if they now have to pay a larger share of SNAP and Medicaid costs? What new rules or taxes might states impose to make up for that extra spending? That's what I have for you today. Thank you so much for being here. As always, please don't forget to subscribe to my newsletter and subscribe if you enjoyed this episode and you learned a lot, please share it with a friend. And you know, that way they can get caught up on the bill and get informed as to what's going on. Have a fantastic next couple of days and I will talk to you on Thursday.